as a fiery furnace.

The express-men were smashing our twenty-two trunks on deck end
foremost, caving one in every minute or two, and I felt too hot and
anxious for reciprocity when the musicians struck up, for all the genius
and ambition was just burned out of me.

When we got aboard, the thermometer was running up so fast that another
hitch would have made it boil right over. Those glass things ought to be
made longer at both ends.

I haven't a blinding faith in express-men since I saw three of E. E.'s
best Saratoga trunks stove in, so I let the music storm on while I kept
watch of my own hair-trunk, which came down from my grandmother on the
father's side, who fed the calf that gave up the skin that covers that
trunk only with its innocent life. She fed it with skim-milk from her
own saucer, and set store by the trunk on that account up to the day of
her death. Then she willed it to me in a codicil, that being more sacred
than the original testament, she said, which I cannot understand--all
testaments, old or new, being first in my estimation.

Well, of course, I kept watch of that trunk, and when I saw a great
broad footed Irishman take it from the wagon and pitch it ten feet on
deck, I just shut my parasol, clenched it in the middle, and went up to
him.

"How dare you pitch my property on end in that way?" says I.

"I hain't touched none of your property," says he, a-wiping his forehead
with the cuff of his coat. "Never see a bit of it."

"That trunk is my property," says I, pointing toward it with my parasol,
which I still held belligerently by the middle.

"Well," says the fellow, eyeing the trunk sideways, "it does look sort
of pecular, but still I reckon it's nothing more 'en a trunk, after
all--one of the hairy old stagers--but only a trunk, anyhow!"

"Sir," says I, with emphatic dignity, for the honor of my ancestors was
concerned, "that is a traditional trunk--a testamentary bequest from my
grandmother--who was revolutionary in her time."

"What," says the man--"what is that you say?"

Here a real nice-looking gentleman came up to where I stood, and says he
to the man:

"You should be more careful, the trunk is evidently an heirloom."

"You are very kind," says I, relenting into a bow; "it's only a
hair-trunk--grandmother's loom went to another branch of the family."

"Well, anyway, I'll put the crather by itself, and bring it to yez safe,
marum, never fear," says the Irishman; and with that